Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Charting Queer Visibility: A Content Analysis Of Queer Picture Books, 2000-2024, Amanda Melilli, James W. Rosenzweig, Alicia G. Vaandering

Library Faculty Research

This poster session presents findings from a content analysis of queer picture books published from 2000 to 2024. In an initial review of more than 650 books, the authors analyzed narrative themes and the identities, orientations, and BIPOC and/or disability intersectionality of queer characters in each book. This research built a final book sample of more than 430 unique titles with identifiably queer characters. The findings map queer representation and narratives in picture books published in the U.S. and Canada during the twenty-first century.

Queerscape: Transcending Urban Division, Alex Blake

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

The project seeks to demonstrate how infrastructure can act as a symbolic anchor, offering a framework for queer urban design that simultaneously addresses safety and cultural visibility. While site-specific, the methodology is intended to inform future interventions in districts for queer and other marginalized communities.

Exploring A Boxing Community Exercise Porgram For Women With Parkinson's Disease, Emily Truong

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Objective: The purpose of this capstone project was to explore the lived experiences of 10 women with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who participate in the Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) program, an exercise community-based non-contact boxing program. Because women remain underrepresented in PD research and exercise-based interventions, this project aims to better understand how women perceive the physical, emotional, and social impacts of participating in RSB.

Methods: This qualitative case series included 10 women diagnosed with PD that participate in RSB at the Tony Cress Training Center. Data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews and audio recordings. Interviews were consented, transcribed verbatim, …

Addressing Sexual Health For Older Veterans By Healthcare Providers: A Mixed Method Study, Andrew James White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: Older adults remain sexually active, yet sexual health is frequently under-discussed in healthcare settings, particularly within veteran populations. Sexual health is essential to overall quality of life, and prior studies have shown that older patients value these conversations. However, veterans often face unique factors such as military-related trauma, including military combat exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to compounded stigma from these topics in regards to open discussions about sensitive health issues to their healthcare providers. This study is significant in its potential to uncover systemic, cultural, and interpersonal influences that shape these dynamics, with a particular emphasis …

Read The Fine Print, Kayla Lockwood

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

read the fine print is a two-floor art installation that investigates how midcentury domestic ideology structured bodies, behavior, and perception through visual, spatial, and material systems. Rather than recreating a home interior, it examines how domestic order was engineered across the United States through color coding, planning diagrams, model environments, controlled decoration, and institutional messaging. The two-floor arrangement mirrors the operation of these systems across registers, moving from overt structures of order to quieter, often obscured consequences. By rendering policy, hierarchy, and expectation materially, the installation invites viewers to consider domesticity as a designed system: a set of practices, forms, …

And Now It Blooms And Sings: The Music And Poetry Of Noël By Clémence De Grandval, Nicholas Stephen Carozza

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document presents a historical background with poetic and musical analysis of Noël for voice, oboe, and piano by Clémence de Grandval (1828–1907) to contextualize the work within the lives of the composer, performers, and poet. Noël occupies an important period in Grandval’s life as one of the few pieces composed after 1900, and features a unique instrumentation of voice, oboe, and piano. The work is a musical setting of poetry by Nobel laureate Sully Prudhomme and was dedicated to oboist Louis Bleuzet and baritone Paul Daraux. This document presents biographical information, compositional background, records of performances, and analysis to …

170 Silent Stories: Gendered Violence Beneath The American Dream, Kayla Lockwood

Graduate & Professional Student Association Research Forum

170 Silent Stories: Gendered Violence Beneath the American Dream is a presentation drawn from my MFA thesis exhibition, read the fine print, which critically examines how postwar American domestic ideals—particularly those emerging in the 1950s—were constructed through visual culture, policy, and design. The project investigates how the American Dream promised stability, prosperity, and safety while simultaneously normalizing rigid gender roles, domestic containment, and gendered violence.

At the center of the exhibition is 170 Silent Stories (2026), an installation composed of 170 cast-aluminum high heels, each representing a documented domestic violence case in 1950s New York. The high heel, a deeply …

Relationship Between Supplement Use And Eating Disorder Symptoms, Hannah Segura, Lisa Menegatos, Danielle Morabita, Maegan Nation

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Background: Eating disorders encompass a spectrum of cognitive, behavioral, and physical symptoms related to eating and compensatory weight management behaviors. Supplement usage is becoming increasingly common, especially among younger populations. Using supplements has been shown to put adolescents at an increased risk for body dysmorphia, disordered eating behaviors, as well as other potentially harmful health effects, like electrolyte complications, heart issues, or even death. However, there is less research done on supplement usage in the college student population, especially in men. Across the past 10 years, supplement use in college students has increased 19.5%. Overall, there is a lack of …

An Examination Of The Purity Culture Beliefs Scale And The Interaction Of Religiosity, Purity Culture Beliefs, And Pornography Use In A Census-Matched United States Sample, Kaelyn R. Griffin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The impacts of purity culture have been documented in the prevalence of abstinence-only sex education, perception of personal value tied to virginity, and shame and guilt related to sexual behavior. Similarly, models of moral incongruence often examine religiosity as a contributor of distress related to sexual behavior and pornography use, likely tapping into the influence of purity culture without directly naming its presence. This distinction is crucial due to the variety of religious beliefs and practices, some including purity culture and those without sexually restrictive beliefs and practices. Despite this, standardized measures for researching purity culture are limited. Ortiz (2018) …

Housewerk: How Drag Performers Engage In Emotional Labor While Navigating Community Care, Steph O. Landeros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines drag performance as a form of service labor shaped by emotional labor, community care, and identity-based inequality. Drawing on interviews with drag performers shows how drag labor blends artistic skill, emotional regulation, interpersonal care, and entrepreneurial labor. While these demands mirror service sector roles in other industries, drag remains underrecognized and undervalued, particularly for performers who do not conform to white, cisgender norms. The study introduces Housewerk—an adaptation of Marlon Bailey’s concept of housework (Bailey, 2013)—to describe the mix of paid and unpaid labor drag performers engage in. Housewerk captures how performers must balance self-preservation (branding, income, …

More Than A Feeling: A Mixed-Methods Examination Of Transgender Community Connectedness And Associations With Suicidality, Erin Rook

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Transgender adults experience significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation than the general population. A sense of transgender community connectedness (STCC) may reduce this risk, but predictors of STCC and its association with suicidal ideation are understudied. This cross-sectional mixed methods study examined STCC and past-year suicidal ideation in relation to dimensions of transgender community connectedness (TCC) at each level of the Social Ecological Model using data from a U.S. survey of transgender adults (n = 126). About half (52.4%) felt connected to the transgender community, and 27.0% reported past-year suicidal ideation. Hierarchical logistic regression models for both outcomes showed good …

Misidentified Bodies And Missing Data: Exploring Forensic Disempowerment And Skeletal Narratives Of Transgender And Gender-Diverse Individuals In The United States, Taylor M. Flaherty

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The bodies of transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) individuals represent a physical nexus of contempt and scrutiny. In the United States (U.S.), TGD people experience disproportionate levels of violence and premature death, contributing to a persistent epidemic of harm. Institutionalized anti-TGD biases have reinforced systemic neglect, leading to the routine exclusion of TGD individuals from research, data collection, and historical archives. The absence of state or federal initiatives to track mortality trends and risk factors among this population further exacerbates their systematic erasure. In particular, forensic scientists have traditionally relied on dichotomous indicators of sexual expression which may fail to account …

'We Owe, You Know, The World Our Perfection': How The Neurodiversity Paradigm Informs Autistic Women's Self-Perceptions, Katybeth Adamo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This qualitative, phenomenological study examines how autistic women characterize and interpret their experiences, beliefs, and self-perceptions within the framework of the neurodiversity paradigm. Guided by a social constructivist epistemology, this study explores the complex intersections between autistic women’s experiences of diagnostic processes, gendered socialization, and identity formation in autistic women. Through semi-structured interviews with ten autistic women, themes emerged around gender differences between autistic men and women, external versus internal self-perception, diagnostic age and self-perception, sensory overload and its consequences, and the journey from feeling othered to finding one’s place socially. Findings suggest that delayed diagnosis and persistent societal pressures …

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Contextualizing Historical Bioarchaeological Accounts With Contemporary Social Issues, Katharine Chiyono Woollen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The very existence of women has been taken for granted throughout history. Their domestic roles are viewed as biologically fixed, resulting in a general lack of information recorded or researched relating to their lived experiences, life histories, and narratives. Instead, it is the history of white men that has been standardized as the norm, creating visible gaps in our understanding of women’s experiences. Additionally, the majority of existing literature centers on female reproduction, their roles as mothers, and violence enacted against women. While this information contributes towards a greater understanding of women’s experiences in bioarchaeological investigations, these data often lack …

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring Themes And Identities In Lgbtqia+ Picture Books, Amanda Melilli, Alicia G. Vaandering, James W. Rosenzweig

Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation shares an analysis of over 275 picture books featuring LGBTQIA+ identities, providing evidence that the depiction of queerness in children’s literature is complex and varied. Tools for defining narrative themes and LGBTQIA+ identities will be shared as well as data on queer characters with intersecting identities. By exploring the nuances of LGBTQIA+ representation in picture books, attendees will gain a better understanding of novel research inquiries into representation.

“Sex Is Fun”: A Study Of Hook Up Behaviors And Experiences Of Post-College And Middle-Aged Adults, Joshua Corum

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research is a qualitative study of the hook up and casual sex behaviors and experiences of those in full adulthood, focusing on their motivations to hook up and the subsequent outcomes of those casual sex activities. Most of the existing scholarship on hooking up and casual sex primarily investigates the behaviors, attitudes, and experiences of college students within emerging adulthood. Little consideration is made for the ways in which adults negotiate hooking up and casual sex in other stages over the life course and after major life transitions. In this dissertation, I asked three questions: 1) How do adults …

Examining The Risks And Resilience Of Older Adults Living With Hiv/Aids: Qualitative Community-Based Participatory Research Studies In Southern Nevada, Brandon Ranuschio

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the height of the HIV pandemic in the 1980s, medical interventions have significantly increased the life expectancy of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) and made HIV/AIDS a livable, chronic health condition. Because of this, PLWH have been living longer lives and thriving with the help of HIV sector healthcare and service providers. However, with their longer life expectancy, older PLWH have been experiencing other health challenges. One such challenge is the risk of developing HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND), which is a condition that affects up to 50% of PLWH at some point in their lifetime, with middle-aged and older …

“And I’M Going To Destroy You.”: Persona And Gender Performativity In Ernest Hemingway’S The Garden Of Eden, Nicole Minton

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While debate of Ernest Hemingway’s authorial masculine persona in connection to The Garden of Eden has been a point of interest in literary scholarship, no single work has tied together theory of gender performativity to persona. A borderline parodic display of masculine adventure has encouraged a one-dimensional view of Hemingway, who is viewed by audiences as the pinnacle of masculinity. However, this image is complicated by the publication of Eden, which reveals an author interested in gender and sexual identity fluidity. Rarely has a single text called into question so controversially an author’s public image. Eden showcases an empathetic …

"Hi" "Hi", Anonymous 1

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Lgbtqia+ Youth, Esther Segovia

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Women's Research Institute Of Nevada Newsletter, Women's Research Institute Of Nevada

Newsletters

Director's Message: 2023 marks the twenty-fourth year of WRIN as a statewide research and educational institute. As we progress through our second decade we continue to be optimistic despite changing staff, fluctuating economic times, and shifting resources. As we navigated those challenges, we have been grateful for the university’s unwavering commitment and the community’s constant support. We have settled into our new offices at Maryland Parkway and Rochelle after our January 2023 move and appreciate the additional space and easy accessibility both for our staff and community visitors.

Untitled Queer Zine 1, B Alberti

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Best Bisexual, Gia Benevidez

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Untitled Queer Zine 2, Narmaya Gonzalez

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Gay Deceivers, Aristotle Howard

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Untitled Queer Zine 3, Abby Kassai

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Untitled Queer Zine 4, Tayla Penn

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Finding Community In Queer Art, Anonymous 2

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Untitled Queer Zine 4, Anonymous 3

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.

Good Girl, Faye (Chelsea) Hamada

Be Seen Zine Workshop: Exploring Queer Identities and Cultivating Community

No abstract provided.